


Baa Baa Black Goat

by dorothy_notgale



Category: Beyond Re-Animator (2003), Re-Animator (1985)
Genre: Ambiguity, No Body Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-14 01:40:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4545297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorothy_notgale/pseuds/dorothy_notgale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the events of Beyond Re-Animator, Herbert pays his old partner a visit. Dan is ready for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baa Baa Black Goat

“Why don't you come in?” Daniel Cain's voice in the darkness has never been difficult for Herbert to understand, regardless of how hushed, but he does feel some stirring of surprise at the words and their lack of anger. They have been out of synch for too long, it seems, and now will rub like a mismatched joint and socket.

“I thought you'd never ask.” When Herbert says it, the old saying floats in a strange gulf between sarcasm and literal truth. Dan turns and precedes him into the quiet, darkened townhouse, flipping on a light without looking to see whether Herbert will follow.

Inside, the white walls, beige carpet, and black modular furniture speak to the place's rental status—more respectable than their old near-campus housing, but no more enduring. This is a good thing, as it means that Dan can easily pick up stakes if necessary, but at the same time there are hints of domesticity (dishes in the sink, reading glasses, DVDs stacked haphazardly by a television and player) that give Herbert an odd feeling of alienation, as though he fits in this space less than the man who pays to live in it and pretends that makes a home. Dan's hair is greying. He's dressed in a jogging suit and sneakers like any other middle-aged family practicioner settled in after six gruelling hours of runny noses and abdominal cramps. The weight of the syringe case in Herbert's pocket is the only familiar thing here, and he wonders why he bothered to come at all.

“I almost believed that you'd quit me, like a bad habit.” An 8x10 photograph on the end table shows Dan smiling at a lovely blonde woman. The frame is sharp-edged; it digs into the flesh of Herbert's fingers. They are always the same, these women Dan finds: always young, sweet, and willing to be everything in his life that Herbert isn't. Day and sun and life and relief from the endless work. He doesn't begrudge the periodic need, though he does hope (patterns be damned) that this one will relinquish her claim without the sort of trouble that inevitably disrupts experiments and leaves Dan bitter and intractable for months or years on end.

“No, Herbert.” Cain takes the photograph from him and sets it facedown next to a lamp. He sighs, eyes downcast towards the black cardboard backing. “If you're a bad habit, I think you're the kind I'll never really be free of. At least, not as long as we're both among the living.”

“All the more reason to get back to work, then—” Herbert tries a smile “—am I right?”

“Of course.” Dan pauses and looks him in the eye then, a searching stare, perhaps gauging how the years and all that went with them have (or haven't) changed the Herbert West he met back at Miskatonic Medical School, as time changes all living things. “Let me show you something.” And once again, Herbert allows himself to be led. It's an odd feeling, another symptom of their long-term dislocation—before, Dan had ever been the follower, however fractious.

In the kitchen, Dan moves aside an absurd “Japanese-style” screen (made, no doubt, in a South Asian sweatshop) to reveal a door in the wall under the stairs. When he opens it, the revelation is as delightful as it is shocking. No suburban broom closet; no spic-and-span pots and pans; instead, another narrow staircase descends crookedly into a Colonial-era cellar from which wafts the scent of chemicals.

Beneath the skin lie the workings; Dan, and Dan's house, are no exceptions. Herbert should have remembered, should have predicted what would happen if the dermis were flayed off to reveal the intricate, systematic beauty and inherent fatal flaws of any living system.

He follows Dan down, down into the swallowing darkness of the laboratory.

It's dizzying, this return to their childish beginnings. The laboratory setup is all wrong, of course—tables too small to hold more than a dog, glassware precariously positioned on surfaces made lopsided by the bare earth floor, a tiny dormitory refrigerator—but he holds his criticisms for now, because Dan made this. Dan knew he'd come, and made ready to continue the work. Whatever his sins against Herbert, this act of atonement proves the man's true mettle. It leaves Herbert weak in the knees; he props himself against the railing and concentrates on breathing as Dan mutters something about coffee.

Moments later, Herbert's always-chilled hands feel as though they are wrapped around a live coal as he inhales the scent of almonds from the amaretto syrup Dan had matter-of-factly added to the drink. His glasses fog. “You look tired, Dan.”

“So do you.” The recent crow's feet beside Dan's eyes crinkle in an unfamiliar pattern; more new expressions for Herbert to learn.

“Yes, well... I suppose that's what the coffee's for, isn't it?” He gestures vaguely with his mug and takes a sip, tasting the acrid bitterness lurking underneath Dan's two spoonfuls of ridiculous artificial sweetener. Herbert doesn't complain, though he has always preferred his very hot and very black, with as much real sugar as he can force to dissolve in it; basic fuel for when his body and mind are at their limits. They'd once spent so many long nights fighting sleep together, so many stretches of days on end with minds racing as fast at their neurons could fire—as students, medics, physicians and outlaws and defendants and always, always as scientists—with nothing to keep them going but chemistry and willpower. Herbert smiles thinly, challenge creeping back into his voice despite best efforts at control. “Aren't you going to join me?”

“Right. I don't know what I was thinking.” Despite his momentary abstraction, Dan prepares his beverage just as he did Herbert's: heat instant coffee and water in a beaker on a hot plate, pour into mug, squirt of syrup, scoop-scoop of white powder from an unmarked tin, stir counterclockwise for twelve seconds with a glass rod which then goes into the sink. It all has the air of unconscious ritual that comes from long habit. Herbert knows it well. His own habits have been disrupted for so long that they may as well have been laid to rest, but this—late-night coffee served by Dan in a basement laboratory built for battles with Death itself—is a reminder that nothing need stay buried forever. Dan's laryngeal prominence bobs with his first gargantuan gulp just as Herbert coughs, hard, to clear his throat. His tie feels too snugly knotted.

“Sorry.” Dan does not touch him; he knows that were anything seriously the matter, Herbert could easily diagnose himself. Detection of impending death has never been Dan's primary interest. “The damp must be getting to you. It's not well insulated down here, and we're neither of us as young as we used to be.”

“Quite right,” Herbert replies, finishing his coffee and moving to inspect the equipment for signs of water damage. His chest feels tight but his shoulders are light, weightless with possibility. Dan wheezes a bit as he applies himself to his own rapidly cooling drink.

It's not like old times, but what it is and what it will be are acceptable.


End file.
